Good day everyone!
Exciting new thread on the blog today!
Decided
that it would be fun to create a "Minor League Days" 1971 sub-set
celebrating some of the all-time greats of "yesteryear", beginning with
the greatest of the all, Babe Ruth:
I'll
be creating black and white cards of some of the all-timers pictured in
the Minor League uni's, following the design template of my modern day
thread.
As for Ruth and his Minor League
tenure, it was a brief one, spending the first part of the 1914 season
between the Baltimore Orioles and the Providence Grays as a 19-year-old
pitcher.
Over 35 games the stud would go
22-9 with 139 strikeouts over 244.2 innings, while other stats like
ERA, complete games and shutouts are not available.
He
would finish the year in the Majors, appearing in four games for the
Boston Red Sox and go 2-1 with a 3.91 ERA over 23 innings, completing a
game while striking out only three.
The man was mythical, playing so far
above and beyond his contemporaries that it made him arguably the most
famous person on earth, let alone in America.
I'm not a fan of
all this talk today diminishing all that Ruth did over his career, as I
believe the entire concept of "context" has been lost on those that
like to say things like "...if he played today...".
2800+ hits, 714 homers, 2174 runs scored and 2214 runs batted in, all accomplished in only 8399 at-bats.
To
put that into context, if you gave him another HALF a career of
at-bats, 4000 or so, that would match the great Hank Aaron's at-bat
total, so what would Ruth's numbers be then?
Just something fun to think about.
And
let us not forget a 94-46 record as a pitcher, with a 2.28 ERA over 163
games, including two 20-win seasons and an ERA title in 1916 with 1.75
including nine shutouts.
Just ridiculous. Greatest ever in my book.